"Write Nothing about Politics": A Portrait of Hans Bernd von Haeften
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"Write Nothing about Politics": A Portrait of Hans Bernd von Haeften
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781628953275 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Michigan State University Press |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 106 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
JULIE M. WINTER is a Visiting Assistant Professor of German at Western Washington University. She is the translator of Freya von Moltke’s Memories of Kreisau and the German Resistance, Marion Yorck von Wartenburg’s The Power of Solitude: My Life in the German Resistance, and Alena Wagnerová’s In 1945 They Were Children: Flight and Expulsion in the Life of a Generation.
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CHAPTER 1
"Write Nothing about Politics"
In all the years since July 20, 1944, much has been published about the German Resistance against Hitler. But nowhere does my husband, Hans Bernd von Haeften, clearly appear as the politically active person he was. For this reason, I am now trying to collect and record as much as possible by Hans and about him. Due to constant surveillance by the Gestapo from 1936 on, he left no writings behind except some personal letters. Ever since the first time our house was in danger of being searched in 1933, we had made it a rule that nothing about politics should appear in our letters. We were, by the way, seldom apart during our fourteen years of marriage and therefore rarely needed to write to each other.
"When I tried to imagine what I might write, I was shocked by how difficult it was," wrote Hans's best friend Günther Hill in 1946, in regard to Ricarda Huch's request to send material for her planned book. In spite of his misgivings, I feel that Günther's picture of Hans comes close to life:
I have so many memories of him, most of them quite clear. ... It was nothing specific, no specific talents, characteristics, abilities or accomplishments — it was the irresistible charm of his whole personality, his whole demeanor. It was not his intellect, his character, his ability to take things in, or his ideas, but rather a remarkable and very rare harmony in which these qualities were united in him, a harmony that was expressed not in words or thoughts, but often more profoundly and clearly in a gesture, a smile or a movement. We read and worked together, tried to understand ourselves and God and the world. Much of what we took very seriously then appears to me to be false and outdated today. What remains is the man I can still picture as so alive, as though I had just seen him yesterday, so clearly that I will never believe that he is no longer here.
In order to give a clearer picture of Hans, I can also offer an observation made by my mother, preserved in a letter from Pastor Maas dated January 1, 1948: "Yesterday morning your mother described him to me movingly, and told me what a light emanated from him when he so much as stepped into a room, and how a sense of clear thinking and emotional depth came over the people he met. That is the greatest thing that can be said about a man and also the most enduring."
In addition, I'll quote from a letter I wrote in 1946 to Ricarda Huch, who asked me to write about Hans:
You ask whether my husband also had that radiant look that was definitely so characteristic of his brother Werner. I think that the carefree happiness that radiated from Werner, as well as his joyful laughter, was not characteristic of my husband. In my opinion, his eyes reflected more his kindness, intelligence, and integrity. ... It was amazing how he could concentrate on the most difficult mental work, as well as on pleasant children's games and relaxing vacations, which we took both with and without our dear children. I would love to show you a few pictures where his delightful relationship to our children can be seen. ... His delicate health and his sensitive soul were closely connected. Because of that he had much to fight and much to endure. Body and soul suffered in the same amount under the 'horrors of devastation.' I do not need to write about his devoutness and increasing groundedness in prayer, since all the documents I am sending, especially his goodbye letter, give the best evidence of these. He always had his confirmation text nearby where he could see it:
Be watchful, stand firm in the faith,
Be manly and be strong. (1 Corinthians 16:13)
As a child he had his brother paint the text in Greek, in white letters on a red background with a blue border. The relationship between the two brothers was simply beautiful. They completed each other in many respects. You should especially know about their readiness to help all those in distress, and of their ability to lift people's spirits. They were a wonderful support to their mother after the death of their father. Werner's innate cheerfulness comforted her, whereas my husband helped with his deep compassion and spiritual wisdom. But the brothers also comforted and helped those who were not so close to the family, and they bravely supported many who were politically persecuted with advice and direct action. Using strict self-discipline, my husband had trained himself since adolescence to practice remarkable civil courage, while his brother most likely was able to achieve this virtue with less difficulty. In this, as in all the chivalrous virtues, they had a shining example in their father.
I would now like to give some important dates from Hans's life and describe his political development. The First World War definitely played a large role in the development of the three children. Elisabeth, known as "Liet," was born in December 1903, Hans Bernd in December 1905, and Werner in October 1908. Their mother Agnes, née von Brauchitsch, was a very sensitive and introverted person, who tended to be melancholy, but who was also very assertive. She had definite likes and dislikes. Their father liked to describe a remarkable experience: As the head of the Reich Archives, he and their mother were invited to the large reception at the Reich President's on May 1, 1933. When Hitler, as Reich Chancellor, greeted them, their mother's expression was so unwelcoming that Hitler hesitated for a moment to extend her his hand. Their father, on the other hand, had an engaging personality. Meinecke described him in this way: "Everyone who came into contact with him was, first of all, struck by his intellect, his idealism, and his imagination, which was always active and yet critically held in check. Then they would notice an unusual grace in his nature, which flowed from the depths of his character and was free of all vanity." Ludendorff praised him for having "a capacity for work fueled by his idealism," and the "gift of supporting and carrying his co-workers along." He was an active officer, called up early (1902–1907) to the Military Academy and appointed to the General Staff of the Eastern Commander-in-Chief beginning in December 1914. As the adjutant of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, he was immediately pulled into the crisis of the two-front war. After great losses in the West, at the Battle of the Marne, Hindenburg and Ludendorff wanted to focus the war effort on the East. Father Haeften was sent to the Kaiser with a letter containing these plans. In spite of the outraged objections of the Kaiser, Father Haeften also personally declared his support for this oppositional demand. At this the Kaiser — enraged — tore the national emblem from his uniform and the sword from his side, locked him into the nearest room, and had him quickly put before a court-martial. He received a disciplinary transfer to Brussels, without decorations or medals. Father Haeften described this scene now and again in the family circle with great pleasure. The official version was merely that "he fell for some months in disgrace." Much later, after the death of their father, Hans Bernd wanted to publish a chapter from his father's memoirs "The Crisis of the Two-Front War," somewhat modified, as a warning to Hitler against attacking Russia. But this project immediately failed to pass censorship and was never published.
By the summer of 1916, Father Haeften had been transferred by Falkenhayn, the head of the General Staff, to the military's news department in the Foreign Office, and he remained there until the end of the war. He assembled a staff of talented men, and with his balanced objectivity, he was able to function as a mediator in difficult domestic situations. One of his closest co-workers was Kurt Hahn, whom he brought into his department as an English editor from the central bureau of the Foreign Office, in spite of official protests about Hahn's critical reporting. He worked closely with Hahn until the end of the war.
I quote Prince Max von Baden, who wrote the following about Hans's father:
I heard from Haeften's co-workers that it was not always easy to keep up with his pace. They said he was not easily annoyed, but he was occasionally irate. Indiscretion and petty vanity could make him furious. At times chairs were said to hit the walls. But there was not a person in the whole place who would not have gone through fire for him. (Prinz Max von Baden, Erinnerungen und Dokumente [Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1927], 81)
During the years 1916–1918, Kurt Hahn was also a guest of the Haeften family. As an educator, he recognized Hans Bernd's political interests and talent and advised his parents to orient Hans's education toward diplomatic service, as well as to organize his study abroad in England. And so, early on, they looked for a student exchange for him.
While growing up, Hans actively experienced the excitement of the war and the capitulation and abdication of the Kaiser, as well as the difficult rebuilding of the parliamentary republic. With his siblings and friends he had dug trenches in the family garden — to the point of over-exertion, so much so that his doctor ordered him not to participate in sports at school. At around twelve years of age he staged parliamentary sessions with his friends, which included exciting debates and speeches in front of the entire assembly.
As a young man, Hans mentioned with pride that his ancestors belonged to the "Watergeuzen." Along with William of Orange, they had fought Spanish oppression and the Inquisition in the sixteenth century and ultimately fought to secure the Netherlands' independence from Spain. When Hans's brother Werner was executed by gunfire after the failed assassination attempt of Hitler on July 20, 1944, he cried out "I die for freedom!" as he threw himself in front of Stauffenberg. With his courageous behavior while serving in a responsible political position, their father had undoubtedly set the standard for the death-defying commitment of the two sons against Hitler's murderous antisemitism and megalomania.
In 1921, Liet and Hans were confirmed in Berlin-Grunewald together with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his twin sister. Although they were usually not in the same area, Hans and Dietrich remained closely aligned from that time until their deaths in 1944 and 1945 in their brave opposition to Hitler and National Socialism, supported by their Christian faith. Bonhoeffer began to form a separate ecumenical office of the Confessing Church in 1935 and in a letter to President Koch he named those who were "desired for closer collaboration," among others "Legation Secretary H.v. Haeften — Dahlem, very interested in the matter and prepared to give a lot of time to it, completely with us" (June 4, 1935, as quoted in Bonhoeffer, Gesammelte Schriften, edited by Eberhard Bethge [München: Kaiser, 1958–1974]). When Bonhoeffer traveled to Stockholm in 1942, he received information from Hans during an unobserved "walk" about the state of things in the Kreisau Friends' Circle in order to pass it on to the English, especially Churchill, through the Bishop of Chichester. And after his return they also met "by chance" in Podbielskiallee Station in order to exchange news. In the winter of 1943, shortly before Bonhoeffer's arrest, Hans met him once more in secret.
In their final school years, a friendship began between Hans and Günther Hill (at that time spelled "Hell"), which "had a decisive influence on my life," as Günther wrote in 1946 in the letter cited above. It was also decisive for Hans in many ways. For example, Günther was a Jew, which certainly contributed to Hans's political awareness and early resistance to Hitler. Already in 1933 Günther had to quit his classical philology studies at the university. Kurt Hahn, the friend and co-worker of Father Haeften's during the war and revolutionary time, was also a Jew. He was arrested in March of 1933 in Salem and had to emigrate. At the beginning of the 1930s, Hahn visited us several times in Berlin because he hoped to find ways with Hans to help make the older generation of politicians aware of the danger lurking in Hitler, and to convince them that they must never allow him to come into power.
Hans had collected drafts for warnings, speeches, and brochures in a file and had written on the cover:
The time will come
When the nobles will conspire
And the miserable wretches will fall into their nets.
[reversed quote from the end of Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen]
In 1935 we left the file for safety reasons in Copenhagen, but the Friends burned it when the Nazis marched in.
In the spring of 1924 Hans completed his exams at the classically oriented Bismarck Secondary School. The excellent teachers at this school, some of whom he kept in touch with, strongly influenced his intellectual development. At his father's wish, following his schooling, Hans had to go for at least half a year into the Reichswehr, which was actually forbidden at the end of the First World War and for that reason called the "Black Reichswehr." Father Haeften was at that time still of the opinion that "boys should be toughened up." Later with Werner he was less severe. For Hans, the time in the military was not an enjoyable experience. He was, as he often said later, "a born civilian." He soon contracted a bad intestinal illness, the "red runs," which recurred and left him with an intestinal weakness.
In the fall of 1924 Hans began to study law in Berlin, continued his studies for a year in Munich, and then went back to Berlin. Smend, Werner Jaeger, Regenbogen, Erich Kaufmann, and Siegmund-Schultze are all names from that time that I often heard. I also received poems from Munich, for in March of 1925 Hans and I had caught each other's eye (he was nineteen years old, and I was sixteen), and from then on we remained close, even though we were seldom together — and never by ourselves. How different from nowadays! Not until the time of Hans's licensing exams did it come to the defining exchange of letters, and on March 27, 1928, we were engaged.
Hans was an exchange student in England from 1928–1929 at Trinity College in Cambridge. During this year he gained a great deal of experience with people and politics. But it was not an easy time; in particular, he had trouble with the language at the beginning, for at that time English was not taught in classical secondary schools. Furthermore, in the first semester his lodgings were quite primitive and had no heat. In addition, the English pies and other college foods didn't agree with him. But no one in Cambridge knew about all these difficulties; only I knew from his letters. From the start he was able to meet his tutor's demanding requirements — weekly essays, which were then discussed with the tutor. Right away he had the topic: "About the Value of the Reinsurance Treaty," about which he commented to me in a letter: "I knew nothing about this topic, and since the 'Reinsurance Treaty' probably inaugurated the most intelligent politics that Bismarck ever carried out, but at the same time the most entangled and difficult to understand, I became completely involved with learning about it and then — of course, only with the help of an Englishman — translating the whole thing, which is incredibly difficult due to the technical terms. In addition, I had my lectures to attend and rowing every day, which makes me very tired" — and which his Berlin doctor had forbidden. The lectures were about constitutional history and contemporary English political theory: "Problems of Government Formation," "Constitutional History 1485," "English Economic History," "General Theory of the State in Modern Times." Immediately after that he wrote an essay "The Relation between Cabinet and House of Commons in England, Legally and Actually" then "The English Church as a Halfway House between Rome and Geneva" — "the most difficult part of church history," Hans commented to me.
At Easter in 1929, Hans was able to spend a worthwhile vacation in London and also to take part in a study week at the "Students' Settlement Union," similar to the "Social Work Community of Berlin-Ost" led by Siegmund-Schultze. Hans regarded Siegmund-Schultze highly ever since he had taken part, with his sister Liet, in activities led by him in Berlin-Ost. Both kept in contact, on a personal and political level, with the same goal in mind: to strengthen the opposition to Hitler. In 1939 Sigmund-Schultze visited us in Bucharest, and later in Berlin Hans used every opportunity he had to visit him in Switzerland. As a Social Democrat, Siegmund-Schultze had already had to emigrate there in 1933.
During his last months in Cambridge, Hans worked in the area of international law. In the Debating Club he had to give a lecture about the Versailles Treaty; Churchill sat in the audience.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from ""Write Nothing about Politics""
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Copyright © 1997 Barbara von Haeften.
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